The Man Who Would Be President

Brumskine says the end came in 1999, after a year and a half, when he went to a forum on Liberia in the United States and found others there snubbing him. He maintains that it was not until that moment that he learned, from fellow conference participants, about Taylor's misdeeds in neighboring Sierra Leone. In its indictment for crimes against humanity, the Special Court for Sierra Leone has said that Taylor spent 1997 to 1999 helping his longtime comrade Foday Sankoh murder, enslave, rape, loot and burn to get at Sierra Leone's diamonds. The hallmarks of that war were the men, women and children who had their hands and feet hacked off and messages carved in their skin in village raids.

Brumskine says he wanted no part of it. He was making friends in the United States and Europe: The National Democratic Institute had invited him to participate in programs to give politicians greater exposure to democratic rule, and the Carter Center had sought his help as an election observer in Nigeria. As news of Taylor's involvement in Sierra Leone came to light, Brumskine feared his own reputation would suffer.

He says he confronted Taylor and that Taylor told him, "I swear to God I had nothing to do with this," and asked, "What are you going to do?"

"Well," Brumskine says he replied, "I'm going to launch an investigation of the executive branch of government. That's part of my duty."

In February 1999, Brumskine announced on the Senate floor that he was establishing committees to investigate the government. When he traveled to Nigeria as an election monitor soon afterward, he says, Taylor began trying to remove him from the Senate. In the United States, Estelle says, she got anonymous warnings by phone. When Brumskine got back to Monrovia, he says, Taylor wouldn't speak to him. Other senators, including Grace Minor (who worked closely with Taylor and therefore is under some suspicion herself), went to Brumskine, urging caution, according to Brumskine and Minor. Taylor had a reputation for forgiving those who stole his money, but for brutally punishing those who stole his thunder.

When Brumskine refused to resign, Minor says, she feared for him -- and warned him in the final hour. "Please, Walker," she recalls saying, using his nickname, "don't fight too much."

Finally, in March, the party passed a vote of no confidence in him, and he resigned his post in the Senate leadership.

Just three days later, he says, he was fleeing Taylor's thugs by the light of the moon.

One afternoon in Monrovia late last year, members of the Center for the Promotion of Intellectual Development debate club spilled out of a tea shop into Carey Street and shouted to be heard over their own din. The moderator had the lost cause of trying to keep order in this all-day, every-day ritual. Part serious discussion, part entertainment. Part rant . . . well, all rant.

"The political situation is corrupt," a man shouted. "We have a generation of political criminals who are masquerading as 'the way forward.' The Liberian people are confused."

"Brumskine is a con man just like Taylor," another man said. "What Liberia is looking for is someone who can build consensus. Brumskine might still have enemies."

"It doesn't matter what he did before," cried another. "Brumskine is the man who will bring the people together."